HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – For the first time this season, Carson-Newman packs its bags and takes to the road for a three-game series at Alabama Huntsville starting with a doubleheader on Saturday at 2 p.m. concluding on Sunday at 2 p.m. from Charger Park.
"The main is keeping the minds and bodies prepared and ready to go," Carson-Newman coach Tom Griffin said. "It means that you still keep doing what you do every day. There are some guys that need reps and guys on our bench that need to be game ready. How do we simulate a game for them in practice so they are ready to go in Huntsville?"
Carson-Newman (1-0) has won its opening series in each of the last three years since dropping two of three at Limestone in 2018. Over that time, the best start to the year was a 7-0 surge coming out of the gates in 2020. Playing a Gulf South Conference foe in the opening series, this year is the first time since 1995 when the team traveled to Jacksonville State that the opening series is not against a Conference Carolinas, Peach Belt or South Atlantic Conference team.
Coming full circle, Carson-Newman's last game before the Covid-19 in 2020 was a 9-7 setback at Charger Park against Alabama Huntsville. The programs have clashed three times prior to the weekend with the Chargers winning all three matchups.
On March 11, 2020, Zach Boze (Gallatin, Tenn.) produced his first-career four-hit game but Carson-Newman, despite scoring first, saw its comeback big fall short in a 9-7 contest. Down by as many as four runs, the Eagles pulled within a run in the seventh. The Eagles had runners in scoring position with less than two outs in each the eighth and ninth innings but could not get a run.
In 2021, Alabama Huntsville earned the No. 5 seed in the South Region for the NCAA Baseball Championships marking the seventh time in school history it reached the NCAA Tournament and first time since the 2014 year.
After falling 4-1 to seventh-ranked Lee, the club rebounded to beat Shorter 7-2 in the postseason. However, the Flames got the better of the Chargers on May 29 winning 10-4 to eliminate UAH in a game where it led 4-3 after three innings of action.
The Chargers wrapped up the season with a 23-20 overall record that saw the club perform better away from home where they went 6-8 on the year. In road and neutral site contests, the unit recorded a 17-12 tally. Due to cancellations, the team only play four series at home wining the final two.
Garrett Bodine is one of the top returning hitters in the Gulf South named to the preseason All-South Region squad. He hit .369 with a .467 on-base percentage, both ranked in the top 10 in the league. As one of the more complete players in the region, he added 14 stolen bases to rank seventh in the conference.
Despite only hitting 34 home runs last year, 12 different players took a turn rounding the bases. Showcasing the gap-to-gap hitting, the team ranked No. 34 in the country with 91 doubles with six players posting double digits led by preseason All-Region honoree Collin Brewer.
On the rubber the team was eighth in the Gulf South with a 5.59 earned run average but the defense behind them tallied a .964 fielding percentage, good for fourth. The team had a solid bullpen anchored by Parker Henson. The right-hander yielded a .177 batting average against and a 1.63 ERA with nine scoreless outings out of his 14 appearances.
Kody Keiser was the team's top starting pitcher positing a 4.40 ERA in 61 1/3 innings pitched walking only seven batters all year. The left-hander's best performance came on May 1 against Valdosta State where he threw 10 innings of four-run baseball after tossing nine shutout frames a week before versus Delta State.
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